Short Story Editing Help

[Attercop]

So, I just finished a short story for an English class and my professor says it’s good enough to get published. I have no experience in this sort of thing at all and even just googling an editor has me little overwhelmed. I remember reading earlier in a few threads that some of the lovely people here know a little bit about this and I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction.  Maybe to a trusted editor or short story publicist. Or just some words of advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

[dippindot]

Well, I'm not sure what the process is for short stories vs novels, but I imagine it's similar.  For a novel, you would find several agents who represent your type of story, and send them query letters.   Query letters have a format, and agents read a TON of them each day, so be sure to research the query letters in general and the agents in particular you wish to query.

http://queryshark.blogspot.com is a great resource for how to and how NOT to write query letters for novels, and it's a fun read in general.

For information on publishing short stories specifically, you could post a thread at the Nanowrimo forums - http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums - or just look around there and see what others have posted on the subject.  There is a ton of information there on what to do after you finish a story/novel.

One thing I know you do NOT do for novels is send your story straight to an editor.  The chain is author-agent-editor.   Editors do not like receiving unsolicited manuscripts.  This may not apply if you are trying to get published in something like a magazine, though.

Hope that sheds some light on it.   

[lupachiotta]

Usually short stories are published in literary magazines, theme magazines, book anthologies, online magazines, etc. These do not require an editor. Just google it and submit your story to some literary magazines that have open submissions and see if it can't get published!

[karrie91]

Just wanted to add that if you DO get an editor, avoid ANY that want money up front for reading your work. It's unacceptable. They should only be getting paid AFTER you are published.

[melodys_angel]

Sounds like you have some info

Best of luck!

[kaoskat]

Sounds like you've gotten some great advice! Best of luck!

[Attercop]

Thank you so much. Everyone has helped me a great deal. Everyone here is so great.

[Eviecorn]

If all the advice here hasn't helped, you can always forward it to me.  I'm an English teacher and I can help with editing and revising.